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UCSF vs Columbia
Started by finwon
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UCSF because the city is just amazing. SF is my second home so I am partial to UCSF. 😀
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For sure SF is a beautiful city.
But columbia has more people going to specialty programs (not including GPR)
and my fiance lives in Boston, which is much closer to NYC than to SF.
I already put the deposit into Columbia, but just wanna see what others would choose if the price doesn't matter to you. (Since I'm not a CA resident, UCSF and Columbia cost almost the same over 4 years)
But columbia has more people going to specialty programs (not including GPR)
and my fiance lives in Boston, which is much closer to NYC than to SF.
I already put the deposit into Columbia, but just wanna see what others would choose if the price doesn't matter to you. (Since I'm not a CA resident, UCSF and Columbia cost almost the same over 4 years)
In that case, CU is a better choice. I'd want to be as close as possible to my fiance during dental school.🙂
Do you plan on having a car in upper manhattan? If not, the distance thing is largely psychological. A 4hr flight vs an hr flight. They're both flights. The one Columbia benefit is time zone: you both can be on the phones at similar times in the day. None of him having to go to bed when you've just finished dinner, etc.
UCSF'll cost less after you change residency. 12.2k/yr to be exact! They also have a much better location, since Harlum's kinda depressing. Very few food choices in the area too!
Columbia's curriculum is largely medical. A medical education can come in handy in many situations. You'll just be a couple years of rotations away from being a doc!
When comparing specialty placement rates, please remember that last year's graduating class is also the entering class 4 years ago. There's a sharper discrepancy between the two schools' AA back then. Since UCSF's last entering class had an AA of 22 and Columbia's in the 22's, there may be a lesser difference between specialty rates for this past entering class.
you should come to columbia! i am biased though 😀
i had the same dilemma last year. they are both good schools.
i chose columbia because even though sf is a beautiful city, i like nyc better and i would like to live on east coast. where do you wanna live? east or west?
washington heights is not the most interesting area but you dont see much of it honestly. you go to class, then library or home and when you have free time you go downtown (it takes 20 min with A).
having med students can be a plus. they share with us some pretty sweet resources plus you get some cool professors. right now we have a nobel prize winner as one of the professors, (i know i am a dork...i find these things impressive). hehe other one was on colbert report.
anyways, good luck with your decision!
For your situation, you definitely should pick Columbia over UCSF. Putting additional, unnecessary strain on your relationship really isn't a good idea.
As was already mentioned, Columbia puts you a lot closer to the fiance (its faster, cheaper and requires less advance planning to travel between Boston and NY than Boston and SF) plus you'll be in the same time zone.
My wife and I did the cross country relationship for the first month of school (she stayed back to sell the house). That absolutely sucked. You want to talk, but the three hour time zone difference really shortens the window of opportunity. Long distance relationships are stressful enough, as is dental school. You don't want the additional stress of a cross country relationship if you can avoid it.
As was already mentioned, Columbia puts you a lot closer to the fiance (its faster, cheaper and requires less advance planning to travel between Boston and NY than Boston and SF) plus you'll be in the same time zone.
My wife and I did the cross country relationship for the first month of school (she stayed back to sell the house). That absolutely sucked. You want to talk, but the three hour time zone difference really shortens the window of opportunity. Long distance relationships are stressful enough, as is dental school. You don't want the additional stress of a cross country relationship if you can avoid it.
Having your fiancee nearby seems like it would be incredibly important. I vote for Columbia.
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yeah agreed. Columbia is the way to go.
BTW I found this on youtube earlier, it's a talent show by those Columbia kids.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iqqxMh3nWGA
Go Columbia! No hating on UCSF tho...
As far as the distance, my gf and I were together when I was in Boston for undergrad and she was in the NY area... travel is not too shabby and def cheaper (greyhound for a 60 dollar round trip or if you're feeling brave hop on a Fung-wah bus from NY chinatown to Boston chinatown for like 15 bucks or something each way at the expense of thinking you are going to be driven off a cliff once every 3 minutes).
And as my wonderful comrade Shamrock already stated, for oodles of reasons, CU is perty sweeeeet...
As far as the distance, my gf and I were together when I was in Boston for undergrad and she was in the NY area... travel is not too shabby and def cheaper (greyhound for a 60 dollar round trip or if you're feeling brave hop on a Fung-wah bus from NY chinatown to Boston chinatown for like 15 bucks or something each way at the expense of thinking you are going to be driven off a cliff once every 3 minutes).
And as my wonderful comrade Shamrock already stated, for oodles of reasons, CU is perty sweeeeet...
UCSF All the way ))
Actually, there's a greyhound or peterpan bus in port authority which costs $38 for roundtrip. It goes to south station, Boston.
